ISSUE 2: MMIWG
#MMIWG
The ongoing national crisis of ignored Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
Issue #2 of this zine series introduces folks to the current national crisis of thousands of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. That this crisis has been allowed to continue for so long is baffling. This zine is 22 pages long, in full colour and is full of my love and heartbreak. This zine took it out of me, both zines have as the research element for both involves hours or reading and listening to heartbreaking experiences and accounts. I often found myself crying on my couch while listening and reading that I had to do something positive while listening so I started making muffins while listening to podcasts and the truth gathering media so my family ate a lot of muffins for a few weeks there.
I had initially struggled with how to do justice for so many women and girls within 20ish pages, this is the hard part of the zine project, condensing immense amounts of information into a small format that people can pick up on the fly and learn a lot within a quick 20 minute read. I decided to focus on statistics and questions of WHY/HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? WHY/HOW DO PEOPLE NOT KNOW MORE?
This issue focuses on a few points, one being statistics regarding violence against Indigenous women as well as how these stats have been ignored for years. Also discussed is the Highway of Tears, flawed law enforcement procedures and data gathering and whether Reconciliation is really possible if issues such as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls is still actively being botched. Included in the zine is a collaborative piece between magical wonders Sākihitowin Awāsis, a Two-Spirit spoken word artist and Dawn Redskye, an Anishinaabe-Irish artist and & musician.
